When Serene mooted the idea of each of us writing our memories of our past, I thought it was time to deliberately sourced the stories from my parents. All the while before this, we heard of snatches of stories here and there without asking any probing questions of "Why? How? When exactly?" So this time I asked my mum about our grandparents' history.
HOW DID MY PATERNAL GRANDPARENTS MEET?
Lots of Chinese nowadays would travel back to China to find their 'roots'. Inevitably, many of them could trace their family tree back to the various emperors or some notable Chinese generals or some high ranking officials. Ours were of more humble beginnings.
My grandfather Lim Kim Tiok (林金德) came from Tongsan, China. He was adopted by his uncle ( his parents died early). They also adopted a girl and brought her up to be his future wife. So these two used to play together - more like brother and sister. So when the adopted parents wanted them to get married, grandfather objected to their plans. I'm sure there must be some tension over this issue. His adopted mother passed away and grandfather then packed his bags and took a ship that sailed to Singapore. From Singapore, he travelled to Batu Pahat, and joined a community who were also from his village. They were pig rearers. There he met another uncle and he worked for this uncle.
Grandma, Ho Swee Lian, came from the district of Jiao Ann. She too was adopted by a family who also brought her up as a child bride to the family's son. When they reached marriageable age, the parents arranged for their marriage. The son, (who had fallen in love with another girl from the same village), also refused to comply. He ran off with the girl. He was brought back and was forced to undergo the wedding ceremony with grandma. It was a loveless marriage. The man managed to deceive his family and on the pretext of going on a business trip, he once more eloped with his true love. Of course grandma was devastated. She soon set sail to Malaya to look for her husband. Upon enquiry, she found that he was residing in Batu Pahat ( near the present roundabout) and she travelled there to look for him. (He was a pig slaughterer) Her husband took her in. The "other woman" was deferential ( according to granny). She addressed granny as "elder sister" and each morning, would bring a basin of warm water for granny to wash her face. However , later, there were some cross words between granny and her husband - and granny, being the strong-willed character, decided to return to China. She felt so lost and abandoned. She met an old friend and the friend advised her to stay. The friend introduced her to a bachelor (i.e grandpa) and so she divorced her husband and married grandpa.
They were desperately poor. After their marriage, with no place to stay, they moved to the fringe of the jungle. There they found an abandoned hut and moved in.(now identified as Mile 7, Kluang Road) It was there that my father was born. Granny recounted : "I had only the clothes on my back and an extra change of clothing. There was no money to buy anything for the baby. But there were some old towels left behind by the last occupant and I used that to wrap the baby. A couple of months later, some friends come to look for us and gave us some old clothes for the baby."
Whatever her faults, one can't help but admire granny's strength of character. A more docile woman would have stayed back in China and continued to serve her adopted parents. It was no mean feat for an illiterate single woman to travel all the way from China to Malaya. It was no mean feat to birth her baby all alone, with no one to help her. I can't imagine what her thoughts were when she was going through all those sufferings. Grandpa defied convention (as did the other man) by refusing his parents' choice of a bride. No wonder these were the tough pioneers who could make it good in their new adopted country. I think one of the greatest thing the Communist did for China was to destroy those outmoded conventional practices of child brides.
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